Recently, there has been a growing interest in new and renewable energy due to a global environmental problem, depletion of fossil energy, waste disposal of nuclear power generation, and site selection for construction of new power plants, and the like. Most of all, research and development in the field of solar energy generation that is a non-polluting energy source is proceeding. The amount of energy that the Earth receives from the sun is about 10,000 times more than energy consumption on Earth.
Solar cells are devices for directly converting solar photovoltaic energy into electrical energy. The solar cells have difficulties in commercialization due to their economic feasibility. To replace the traditional generation means such as fossil energy and the like, solar energy should be more economical or be economically competitive than the traditional generation means. Thus, techniques for solar energy are being focused on increasing generation efficiency as well as improving the economic feasibility thereof.
To manufacture such solar cells, a predetermined circuit should be formed on a wafer substrate. Electroplating is one of the potential methods for manufacturing solar cells. In the electroplating, an electroplating material is electroplated on a surface of an object located at a negative electrode by using the principle of electrolysis. Positively and negatively charged electrodes and an electrolyte solution are included as basic elements in an electrolytic-plating process. Also, a metal to be electroplated is present in the electrolyte in the form of ions. Generally, a process of immersing the wafer in a plating bath is performed. That is, to perform electroplating, the wafer is electroplated by immersing the wafer in an electroplating solution in a state where a predetermined jig holds the wafer. As described above, in an exemplary case of forming an electrode pattern through an electroplating process, delaminating a photoresist, and performing an etch back process, among various processes for manufacturing for the solar cells, a substrate carrier device for supporting and carrying a plurality of silicon wafers is essential.
However, it can take some time when the wafer is loaded and unloaded on/from the substrate carrier device. The time required to load and unload the wafer on/from the substrate carrier device has a large influence on productivity and economic feasibility of solar cell substrates. Therefore, techniques to quickly and stably load and unload more wafers on/from the carrier device are very important.
Generally, when the wafer substrate is loaded on and fixed to a supporting frame, numerous screws have been typically used or a clip has been used to fix the wafer one by one. Moreover, it can take a lot of time in the loading and unloading processes because the clips should be released one by one.
The present technology described in this patent document was a result of the research efforts by the inventors and can be used to addresse the above-described limitations.